School Daze

Saniya begins preschool this week. She will go from 8-12:30 everyday. Rob will take her in the morning and I will pick her up after they have their lunch. There is a craft studio, exercise gym, water and toilet area, outdoor play area, quiet room, and eating area. It is four blocks from our apartment. We visited last week and it looks great. There are 19 children, in her group, between age 3-5. Most are 3, so that is good. The teachers speak English, but they said they will speak Swedish to her and then she can respond in English. Saniya is asking what words are in Swedish and seems excited to learn. She brings up, "what is cloud, crying, binkie, plate, and zucchini in Swedish?" You can tell what is happening in her life. There is a cook that prepares meals and it looked very healthy with lots of fruit and veges. Pick up and drop off is very relaxed. I think parents come whenever it works for them, when they are early they just show up. I think as long as you stay under 30 hours per week, then it is whatever works for you. The out of pocket expense for us is about $50 per month for up to 30 hours per week. Then, if one wants to do up to 40 hours per week it is about $100 per month. Those are set amounts for all schools for all children age 1-6. When I ask Saniya what she thinks about her school, she says she is "sick about not having friends", which means she feels nervous about school and making new friends (I think). Rob will stay with her the entire time for the first two weeks or so until she feels comfortable. Yeah!

I am really excited to have just Rowan. He is walking now and is into EVERYTHING! He is so cute though. What a great age. But, then I keep saying that about each month. I think, "oh, this is the best".

We love the apt. Still have to put up some pixs. So much is offered with the place. Any extra beds or appliances are available if we ask. I just went on a long walk round Haga Park. It is this really great park that we used to go to for picnics in the summer.

I will register for Swedish classes tomorrow. I am looking forward to that. So, with Saniya at school and me in language class I think intense language immersion will begin. Rob can take language classes at the university, he needs to register though.

The leaves are starting to turn here. The weather is still sunny and warm. The days are getting shorter and there is a definite anticipation for the winter. I am excited to see everything freeze over. The iced lakes and people skating, should be very Nordic!

Yasmiene

TV Land

First of all. We had a great move and LOVE the new place. It is better than we expected actually. Nice furniture, great windows and SPACIOUS! All is well and we will post some pics of the place in the next week or so.

Also, Saniya will begin school at the end of the month. She will go every morning from 8-12. She is excited and nervous. I am ecstatic to hang out with just Rowan, but am also having a little bit of empty nest syndrome. She and I have been together for the last 2 and 1/2 years.

So, let's talk TV. In the last 5 weeks, I have been getting the low down on the Swedish boob tube. First off, nothing except kids shows are dubbed. They are all subtitled in Swedish. At first I thought, 'why'? But, now I see. It is really great for familiarity with other languages, and helps to learn and be comfortable with other cultures. I love it! I try to figure out words and listen to the pronunciation for shows in German, Finnish, Norwegian, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, I am sure others as well but I can't think of any right now.

Also, the commercials are all low key. There are no food commercials. I have seen one for Wasa crackers and one for a supermarket. The shows have commercials maybe two breaks for a one hour show. Trippy, huh. The shows start at odd times, like at 1:55 pm. Also, there will be no programming on a station for hours at a time, like in the middle of the day. Or programming won't begin on another station until say, 9:00 am. Weird. The U.S. is obsessed with selling stuff to keep their station #1. I think that they view TV as a public service here and it is not so competitive. Different.

Of course the nudity is different. Nothing is covered. Sat. afternoon I turned on the TV and there was a Swedish documentary on a nudist camp. There was everyone just hanging out. The nudity was less shocking for me, it was more that in the U.S. that would be soooooo controversial and never shown in that time slot, etc. Also, there is no dubbing of swear words on TV and no discretion of violence. We watch HBO shows on regular TV.. Sopranos is on every Sunday night.

One last thing is that there are no commercials for movies. I think this is standard among all channels. I'll see, but so far I can't think of a movie I have seen on any of the channels with a commercial. They have old movies on in the middle of the day here. I saw an early Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart movie a few weeks ago while everyone was napping. Lovin' it.

While I am thinking it. One thing about our apartment. They are tons of bunnies hopping around here. Our place looks onto a huge courtyard. There are black bunnies hopping all over the place grazing and being generally bunnyish. Saniya and Rowan are loving it. They look from our balcony onto all of the bunny action!

Yaz

Nine eleven

Hi Everyone,

All day the date has been with me as I am sure it has with all of you. I really can’t believe it has been 5 years since that horrible day. Rob and I were reminiscing about our experience and really can’t believe our lives are where we are today. Just one different decision and the outcome could be so different. On 9-11-01, Rob and I were on a United flight coming home from three weeks in England and Italy. We spent the night in the Heathrow airport and were ending an overnight flight to Chicago. We were diverted to Toronto and spent three surreal days in a hotel trying to get back into our country. The experience was one of stunned silence on the plane when the pilot announced all air traffic in the U.S. has been grounded, to chaos at the Toronto airport trying to get a hotel room, to Rob’s mom sobbing on our answering machine because she didn’t know what flight we were on, to being the first flight back into Chicago O’Hare when the planes were allowed to fly three days later and receiving a standing ovation from at least 200 United employees as we got off the plane. United put us up in a suite in Chicago and they paid for everything while we were in Toronto. I reflect how lucky we are. We definitely weren’t thinking about having kids and living in Sweden back then. But, what if were are on a different flight that day. I truly feel thankful to be here and I think of all of the victims that had a different fate that day.

On that note we have our final move to our new home this Saturday! We are excited to buy some things to make it feel homey for all of us, but especially Saniya. We are going to go to Ikea and buy some fun things for their room.

Rob goes to France for a few days at the end of the week. So, our last few days in the cozy cabin will be just the three of us. That’s ok though. I am really enjoying the solitude and simplicity. It reminds us so much of Alaska here. The natural environment is very similar.

So, take care and talk with you all soon,

Yasmiene

Cozy in our cabin

Just dropping a note from the woods. We are really happy in a little cabin outside of the city. It is on the island of Varmdo in the archipelago. The archipelago (I believe including Stockholm) encompasses 24,000 islands. We realized how busy and stressed this move has been and are enjoying these weeks to recoup and relax. Rob takes a really posh bus into the city for work. It takes him an extra ½ and hour to get to work and back so that isn’t so bad. We are a 1/4 mile from a beach with a play area, café and bakery
at the water. The bus stop is there too, so we play on the beach and wait for Rob to come home in the evening. The cabin is removed from the road and surrounded by pine trees. There is a covered porch and an outdoor deck with table and chairs. The people left bikes beach toys for Saniya and Rowan. Love it. We will be happy to be in the city long term, but for now it feels restful. Rob is taking a 4 day weekend to hang out together and we are celebrating our anniversary as well. Next week he prepares to go to France for work that last few days we are here. So, we will be by ourselves. The last place was such a nightmare with our baby crawling circumstances. It was soooo small and really dirty. I felt grossed out to put Rowan down. And, then there were the noise issues. But, that is all old news. We are excited to get to our “permanent apartment” (as we have named it).

The weather is changing here. We have started wearing jackets in the morning and evening the last few days. It is raining more often. Hmmmm…we’re anticipating what the winter will entail.

We will be in our new place Sept. 16th. The microphone broke on our headphones for all of our Skype friends so we will get that fixed hopefully as soon as we are in the city again.

Also, some travel news. We are talking about traveling the last two weeks of next July (feels like a million years from now) so don’t plan to visit those 2 weeks (or you could visit Stockholm and have the place to yourselves…) And, we just read that if you fly with SAS then all children get a 33% discount.

Well, that’s it for now.

Yaz